The Navy in the past few months has awarded six contracts to four companies to design, build, and test rocket motors and related technology for the Standard Missile (SM)-6 as it moves forward with extending the range and capabilities of the ship-fired anti-air missile.
Navy and industry officials have said that the design and development awards could also lead to expanding the industrial base for solid rocket motors (SRMs). The Aerojet Rocketdyne segment of L3Harris Technologies [LHX] makes the Mk 72, the first stage booster for the SM family of missiles, and the Mk 104 dual thrust rocket motor that provides second stage propulsion. The company is one of two legacy SRM providers.
The other legacy supplier of SRMs is Northrop Grumman [NOC]. The rocket motors have been a bottleneck in the supply chain for tactical missiles due to lagging production capacity and because demand has outstripped the availability of components used in assembling SRMs. Both companies are investing in expanding production capacity of the motors.
Chris Kubasik, chairman and CEO of L3Harris, told investors last week on the company’s first quarter earnings call that the SRM bottlenecks have been due in part to “low yield” and supply chain performance (Defense Daily, April 26). The company has been investing in suppliers and adding new ones, he said.
On top of those investments, L3Harris has ordered equipment such as mixers and ovens to boost its production capacity, although the lead times for these products is about a year, Kubasik said. He believes there is not a need for another SRM manufacturer but rather more government investment in the supply chain.
“What we need is someone working on the igniters, the nozzles and the cases and I think that would help unlock the potential,” he said.
In 2023, L3Harris’ SRM site in Camden, Ark., produced about 115,000 rocket motors ranging from palm-size to ones the size of a small car, Aerojet Rocketdyne said. That represents a 60 percent increase at Camden from 2021.
Kathy Warden, chairwoman, president and CEO of Northrop Grumman, said April 25 during her company’s earnings call that over the last five years they have been investing in their largest SRM facility and have tripled production capacity for tactical SRMs. She also said the company is working to qualify as a second source for the SM-6 motors.
Recent Awards
In December 2023, the Navy awarded Anduril Industries an $19 million Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) to develop an SRM for the 21-inch second stage of SM-6. Anduril entered the rocket motor business in 2023 with the acquisition of Adranos.
The Navy also awarded SM-6 SRM contracts to L3Harris’ Aerojet business, Northrop Grumman, Ursa Major, and X-Bow Systems, which are posted on the Naval Energetic Systems and Technologies’ (NEST) website. NEST is a partnership between Advanced Technology International and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division to address energetics challenges faced by the Navy and Marine Corps.
The work the companies are doing supports the SM-6 Block 1B variant that extends the range of the missile.
Navy budget documents for the fiscal year 2025 request say the Block 1B is leveraging the service’s investment in the Aegis weapons system and “leverages advanced missile technology from the SM-6 Family of Missiles and a new 21-inch rocket motor.” The motor will go through a competitive prototype demonstration for integration into the SM-6 Block 1B, it says.
Northrop Grumman received two Navy OTAs, a $35 million award in January for what the NEST site describes as a “21-inch propulsion section for Standard Missile.”
The Navy in March also awarded the company a $4 million contract for a Mk 72 booster design, demonstrating that the service is also interested in alternative sources for the SM-6 first stage motor.
Northrop Grumman declined to discuss specifics about the NEST contracts but told Defense Daily this week that “Production of solid rocket motors is a top priority for the U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman will look to leverage capital investments into our Elkton, Md., facility to help meet future demands.”
The Navy’s SRM plans for SM-6 are being managed by the Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS).
Ursa Major in March received a $4.3 million contract to design the Mk 104 dual thrust rocket motor for “manufacturing and reliability,” according to the project title on the NEST site. The company is a startup developing SRMs and liquid fueled rocket engines.
Joe Laurienti, founder and CEO of Ursa Major, told Defense Daily in early April his company is applying its Lynx additive manufacturing capability as part of its design for the Mk 104, which he said could enter production in two to three years (Defense Daily, April 8). Lynx is scalable and flexible and can 3D print SRM cases and other components, a highly automated process that will increase safety and decrease costs, he said.
X-Bow Systems in March received a $3.9 million award for a Mk 104 dual thrust rocket motor design and a $3.3 million for a Mk 72 booster design.
Jason Hundley, X-Bow’s CEO, told Defense Daily in April the contracts are for the redesign and development of the SRMs “to potentially on ramp to qualification and production as an alternate source.” He also touted that his company has eight different rocket motors in development or that are on contract within the last eight months.
L3Harris’ Aerojet business also received an award, $3.9 million for re-grain of the Mk 104.
“The regrain prototype project will allow the establishment of energetic casting processes and procedures between Aerojet Rocketdyne and Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division to prepare and update existing Mk 104 solid rocket motors to fulfill urgent national security needs,” Aerojet Rocketdyne said.
The SM family of missiles are developed and manufactured by RTX [RTX]. In March 2020, the company reached a $1 billion, five-year strategic agreement with Aerojet Rocketdyne to purchase rocket motors for Standard Missiles.
The recent Navy awards by PEO IWS “represent a proactive approach to expanding the solid rocket motor industrial base and laying the groundwork for future missile efforts by bringing new players into the space and leveraging expertise from other industries,” Naval Sea Systems Command wrote to Defense Daily on April 30 in response to queries sent earlier in the month about the SRM awards.
The Navy is also investing in strengthening its organic rocket motor capabilities at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division, which recently entered a 10-year partnership with Aerojet Rocketdyne to increase SRM production for national defense programs (Defense Daily, Jan. 8).
“As the geopolitical environment continues to evolve, these efforts will remain essential in safeguarding the nation’s interests and ensuring the readiness of its armed forces,” NAVSEA said in its response.
The ongoing Russo-Ukraine war and its mass consumption of SRM-powered missiles used for anti-armor, long-range artillery, and air and missile defense, has laid bare shortcomings in U.S. stockpiles of these weapons, which it is supplying to Ukraine to help them fend off Russia’s illegal invasion of the country. The U.S. Defense Department is budgeting to increase production of various missiles to build stockpiles, and begin to bolster the supply chains, given the potential for future protracted conflicts.
A Different View
Anduril, Ursa Major, X-Bow and other venture capital-backed startups are designing and developing SRMs with an aim to challenge legacy suppliers, arguing they do not face the same supply chain constraints as incumbent propulsion providers because they are bringing new and more creative approaches to designing and producing motors, which they believe will help boost production capacity.
If Ursa Major hits a snag in its supply chain, the company will redesign a part or use different materials to find a creative workaround, Laurienti, the company’s CEO, told Defense Daily in February.
“Our approach is to start that from scratch,” he said. “We’re not standing on the shoulders of 50 years of single supplier use cases. We can go manufacture and quickly pivot if we hit a raw material shortfall.”
X-Bow’s Hundley also told Defense Daily in February that his company is taking a more vertically integrated and holistic approach to manufacturing, focusing on what it can control and more often comes down on the “make versus buy side based on what we’re seeing with second and third tier suppliers.”
For example, X-Bow designs and assembles its own igniters, purchasing some metal components to do so, but igniters are not a supplier chokepoint for the company, Hundley said. The company also purchases resin and filament to make its motor cases, he said.
Like Ursa Major, X-Bow is incorporating automated manufacturing technologies that give it more options to make subcomponents in house and minimize its supply chain tail. Still, Hundley said the company is closely monitoring its supply chain.
“So, we’re paying attention, but basically, we pay attention not necessarily at what they call the second and third tier level, we’re paying attention to things at the fourth and fifth tier component level,” he said.
When X-Bow surveys the larger supply chain, every machine shop it sees is busy as more aerospace, defense, and other work is being brought back to the U.S.
“And so, if you’re not looking at different ways to challenge how you build up your supply chain, yeah, your answer could be exactly what the CEO of L3 says,” Hundley said.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] is an investor in X-Bow. RTX is an investor in Ursa Major.
Laurienti, in the February interview, said that using the Lynx 3D printing cell, Ursa Major has reduced the part count on one motor by 57 percent and cost by 30 percent.
“That was a fascinating use case where we had we had someone ask us to manufacture to print, meaning, ‘Go assemble these 30 parts for us. We just need another supplier for the solid rocket motor,’” he said. “We came back and said, ‘Here’s how we would 3D print it.’ And it was massive part and cost savings.”
A spokesman for Northrop Grumman told Defense Daily in February that the company partners with new and existing suppliers of materials to support its SRM development and production, and balances the make in-house versus buy from suppliers’ equation depending on the project. He also said the company is “slowly seeing the supply chains return to pre-COVID states,” adding that during the pandemic Northrop Grumman maintained “sufficient sources of supply to met our customers’ needs.”
The Navy said that by working with legacy suppliers and non-traditional companies, “PEO IWS is paving the way for a more robust and adaptable industrial ecosystem capable of meeting defense needs.”
Some of the missile programs that L3Harris’s Aerojet business manufactures SRMs for include Javelin, Stinger, TOW, ATACMS, GMLRS, THAAD, and the new Next Generation Interceptor and Sentinel ICBM that in development. Northrop Grumman also makes SRMs for GMLRS, Hellfire, TOW, AARGM Extended Range, AIM 9X, PrSM, and others.